Project SEARCH's methods could be used to include more folks in STEM jobs!

Hi everyone! We're very excited to hear about your ideas on how to encourage people with disabilities to go into STEM careers.

Summer camps for kids about STEM are very popular. I was disheartened to hear about a young girl w/ cystic fibrosis and her experience at a recent camp for girls interested in STEM.

http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/San-Diego-Teen-Discrimination-AAWU-Summer-Camp-Cystic-Fibrosis-268205372.html... more »

In the ADA era, more people with disabilities are entering two and four-year colleges than ever. As an aspiring professional (non-STEM), I found it very intimidating because there were no clear role models for me as someone with a disability; nor much awareness on the part of college or employers of candidates with disabilities.

What I think is needed is much closer collaboration between disability specialists and traditional... more »

While technology can be enormously empowering for students with disabilities, design choices can cause students to become marginalized because educational tools are not designed for accessibility. We need a focused effort to improve STEM resources such as online courses, text editors, math editors, math textbooks, virtual science experiments and the like. This requirement is particularly important in education but carries... more »

I believe the best way to get our Transition-aged youth excited about careers in the STEM fields is to offer them the opportunity to participate in some work experience while in high school doing paid or unpaid work in a company in the field. Job shadowing is a great way to learn more about a career field of interest! Teens should also be encouraged to consider pursuing higher education in STEM fields, with appropriate... more »

SWD are not allowed into the same robust STEM programs as their non disabled peers in Middle and HS. We must promote and prepare them to take STEM courses in K-12 if we want to encourage them to peruse STEM careers.

Schools should be incentivized to support inclusive school environments instead of exclusive tracking practices. We know first hand, students who excel in science and math, yet struggle with other areas... more »

Support peer mentor positions to facilitate education, advocacy, and employment.

Just came across this last week and it seems like a very innovative idea that echoes many comments in this dialogue by various participants:

“Elevator Pitch Contest” to help students build presentation skills about their abilities. The organizing team included career counselors and disability service providers at local colleges, and two college students with disabilities. Organized by DO-IT (Disabilities, Opportunities,... more »

As this recent article indicates, internal motivation is the strongest (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/06/opinion/sunday/the-secret-of-effective-motivation.html). As a person with a disability involved in a STEM career focused on that disability, I can say that the motivation that I have to try and improve the mostly inadequate AT and DME that I use is stronger than that that motivates most non-disabled engineers. I've... more »

I'd like to share this blog post by The Third Glance, an autistic person's experiences in academia and science. Here's a short excerpt that highlights the challenges of disclosure of disability in the workplace:

"One of the things that I’ve mentioned before, is that while I am diagnosed autistic, and being autistic impacts many parts of my life in ways that other people just don’t ever experience, I am not “out” as autistic... more »

We invite you to join us for the DIAGRAM Center's upcoming free Webinar: “New Models for Creating Accessible Interactive Widgets for STEM Learning” on Thursday, August 7, 2014 at 11:00 a.m. Pacific (2:00 p.m. Eastern; 19:00 GMT). The webinar will be presented by NCAM's Madeleine Rothberg, and Kyle Keane from Wolfram Research, and you can register using the link included here.

 

http://diagramcenter.org/webinars.html

The problem is that employment full time and with benefits is hard to find in some areas. There is a preconceive that people with disabilities are not employable and government will provide for them. If a person is disabled seeking full time employment is taking a job away from non-disabled. Also the workplace accommodations are going be super expensive. In some cases this true but most it is not.

For example I... more »

I ran across that the most Job Coaches are unaware of high functioning and low functioning people with disabilities. So there is a tendency to treat people with autism the same and one size fits all. To me this shows a lack or awareness and education of the Job Coach. In some cases people with cognitive and developmental disabled are lump as intellectual disabled when they clearly are not.

It means to find work... more »

A number of programs exist to evaluate community colleges in their efforts to recruit underrepresented groups in STEM. Local community colleges and high schools could coordinate efforts to identify and recruit promising students with disabilities as part of the transition process. Programs for adult learners with disabilities could also be useful as well.

As a graduate student with an invisible disabilities, I have found that what has hindered my career in STEM the most are two things: the lack of mentors with disabilities and tailored career development. The majority of STEM training at the graduate level assumes able-bodied functioning. The trainers are, by presentation, predominately able-bodied as well. Given the academic setting, these trainers, while able to serve... more »